One Thing After Another
by Emily Rosie
Summary: Billie Carter and Darrel Curtis have been going steady for a while now but out of the blue Darry’s parents are killed in an auto wreck and he is left as his brother’s only guardian. To make matters worse Billie finds out she’s pregnant and from there on in it just seems to be one thing after another for the pair.
1. Bad News

Quick author's note

This is the first thing I've written and shown people so I hope it's somewhat good. It's been beta read by my sister who has a master in English Literature so we should be alright but if you do spot any mistakes please let me know. I'll obviously take criticism but please try to be polite with it. All that over with, enjoy the story!

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1964.

It wasn't all that late but already it was getting dark and she didn't want to be caught out in the dark, she didn't want to be out at all. There was a hell of a chill, made worse by the sharp wind swirling leaves around her ankles and a light rain that pattered down pooling anywhere it could. The street was lit by a murky mixture of what little sun there was and the dim glow of the street lamps just starting to flicker on. Her heels clicking against the cracked sidewalk merged in with all the other sounds that came just before nightfall: cars going a tad too fast in their driver's rush to get home, birds squawking as they scrapped over god knows what, the distant shouts of delinquents planning what sort of havoc to cause, dogs barking and howling back and forth.

It made Billie uneasy, it was hard to hear someone approaching with all that commotion going on and in this neighbourhood you'd want to hear someone coming up behind you. As she squinted through the rain her destination came into view. The Curtis household. She hadn't planned on turning up so late but her boyfriend was due to meet her outside her work and when he didn't show up after forty five minutes she got pissed. After she had rung his house on a nearby payphone five times with no answer she got worried. Darry was not one to miss a date and he definitely wasn't one to ignore the phone so all kinds of hideous scenarios were racing through her head at this point, all except what actually happened.

As she walked up the old steps she noticed the house was eerily quiet, not its usual bustling self. Something was definitely wrong. She pushed open the screen and door and was greeted by the sight of Darry sat staring at the floor and Sodapop and Ponyboy wrapped in each other's arms on the sofa. All eyes landed on her and Darry stood as she entered.

"Hey doll," he said as he walked up to her, "what you doing here so late? You know it's not safe to walk alone at night."

"Yeah, I know, but you were meant to pick him me up for our date and you didn't show so I rang you but when you didn't answer I got worried, thought I should check if you were okay."

She spoke soft and low as she placed her damp coat on the arm of the sofa and Darry sighed, "Boys could you give us a minute?"

They didn't reply as such, just walked over to their bedroom with a nod.

Now she was really worried.

"Darry, sweetheart what's going on? What's wrong?" He held back tears as he motioned for them to sit down. His eyes shone as he clasped her hands tight. "Billie, Mom and Dad are gone."

Her breath hitched in her throat. "What do you mean they're gone?"

"Some police officers came by and said they'd got in an auto wreck and that, that they were both," he couldn't finish the sentence for crying. Billie felt light tears in her eyes and she wrapped her arms tight around his shoulders letting his head rest in the crook of her neck. She stroked his hair gently just letting him cry.

After a while she finally spoke, "What happens now? To you and the boys I mean."

He tilted his head out and stared at the powerless television. "They think the boys should be able to stay with me so long as I can look after them and we all stay out of trouble."

She furrowed her brow and sat up slightly. "What about college, you've worked so hard to get there."

"I know but it's give up college or send my brothers to a boys home and probably never see them again and I can't do that, I can't lose them too. I can't afford it anyway"

She didn't know what to say, on the one hand Darry had worked so hard to get that scholarship, you didn't get privileges like that easy on the east side and it would give him a ticket out of Tulsa for good. On the other, going to college now came at the cost of splitting his family up and as frustrating as the situation was, it was a clear what had to be done. She was pulled out of her thoughts when Darry eventually sat upright. "I should really check on the boys."

"No baby I'll go, you've had to deal with enough today. How about you head on to bed and I'll let myself out once I'm done?"

He looked ready to argue but eventually nodded and sat back into the sofa as she turned towards the younger brothers' rooms. Upon reaching the door it was clear that the room was dark and little noise came from inside so she tried her best to be quiet and just pop her head in but the door creaked and caused Pony to mumble a quiet, "Darry?"

She sighed and walked in. "No honey it's just me, I wanted to see how you two were doing."

Pony sat up slowly. "I don't know, it doesn't really feel real yet, it's like they're still gonna walk through the door and say sorry for being late." Tears ran down the tracks that had been laid out by previous bouts of crying. Billie sat as gently as possible on the bed and lightly wiped his face, "it's gonna be okay Ponyboy." He crumpled forward and started to shake with sobs, she quickly slid next to him and wrapped protective arms round his shoulders, whispering reassurances to him.

She was unsure of how long she'd been laid gently rocking the teen in her arms but when his sobs had subsided into soft snores she freed her arm from under him and tiptoed away to Soda's room, but looking in he was fast out and she wasn't gonna be the one to wake him.

She smiled and went to grab her coat but stopped when she saw Darry sat in the exact position she'd left him in.

"What are you still doing up baby? I said I'd be okay letting myself out you didn't have to wait."

"I know darlin it's just I," he huffed gently, "I wondered if you'd stay the night. I wouldn't normally ask it of you but I just don't think I can cope with..."

She stopped him, "you don't have to explain Darry, I'll stay, if it makes this any easier then of course I'll stay." He took her hand in his and held her gently before finally heading to bed.


	2. Even More Bad News

Authors notes

First off I'm not quite sure how I feel about this chapter but I hope you guys like it. Second, please don't expect my uploads to be this frequent all the time, I'll try keep them as constant as I can but I'm really not that organised xx

After spending that one night over at the Curtis' house it became a much more frequent occurrence. It was like Darry just couldn't get a good night's sleep without Billie by his side and he wasn't the only one having trouble at night. Ponyboy had started to have hideous nightmares ever since the funeral, he'd wake up screaming and covered in sweat, but he could never seem to remember what he'd been dreaming about. It got so bad that Darry took him to see a doctor. He'd said that Ponyboy just had an overactive imagination and that he should focus more on studying and reading and playing sports, it seemed like total bull to Billie but she was certainly no doctor. Either way, after Soda started sleeping in Pony's bed things seemed to calm down a bit.

That night she'd slept at her own house and there wasn't a cat in hell's chance Darry could stay at hers. She lived in a big house that was owned by a woman in her 70s called Mrs. Woods, she was nice but strict. She rented out rooms to young women, said she wanted to give opportunities to girls looking to move out and gain a bit of independence whilst also making sure they still had guidance. She wasn't all too strict about what you did outside of the house but while under her roof you followed her rules; no heavy drinking, no smoking in bed, no bringing boys over, and no getting into trouble. So long as you followed them and helped round the house she was pretty nice. To pay her rent Billie had gotten a job in a dress store up on the east side as a sales assistant, it wasn't well paid by any stretch of the imagination but it was plenty to cover what she needed and it was a pretty easy gig, she'd help girls find which dresses fit right, man the counter and sort out stock every so often. She didn't have work today, however, which was a godsend considering she felt as sick as a dog. She'd already been sick twice but to save face she still went down to breakfast and tried to eat something, this didn't work at all as almost every girl who walked by mentioned how rough she looked.

Kathryn, one of the younger girls, was sat touching her forehead and staring at her with wide grey eyes. "Maybe you've got flu or something, you should really go to the doctors, what if it gets worse?" Billie smiled and nodded, she'd been to the doctors already and was going back that afternoon, but it wasn't for flu. She had a horrible feeling she knew exactly what was wrong with her but she had to be sure. For now though, she was fine letting everyone think it was flu.

Billie's days off were usually spent running errands like picking up some thread or posting a letter, they were menial tasks and normally she loved them, she could just wander and get lost in her own thoughts. Not today though. Today her thoughts were far too loud and frantic to allow her to get lost in them and they carried on like that all the way through into the afternoon where she found herself sat in a small waiting room with the same thoughts still buzzing round her head. Why was it that in a waiting room you felt like you have to be silent, she was sure there was a reason but at that moment it just made Billie feel awkward, like all eyes in the room - what few there were - were all fixed on her.

She tried to focus her attention on a plant in the corner that rustled and swayed anytime the door opened but she kept drifting over to a child sat in the corner with her dad, she was making a hell of a racket and it was clear he wasn't used to being the sole watcher of the child as she kept tugging at his sleeve and babbling about nonsense all while he tried to read his paper and ignore her. They were clearly socs, well the father was, she supposed the little girl didn't even know what a soc was, she hoped she didn't, hoped she still held onto the innocent notion that all people were equal no matter what. She was taken aback when the girl's sharp bright eyes shot up to meet hers and she thought for a second that she was about to be sucked into whatever odd conversation the girl was having with herself but got saved when her name was called.

The walk to the office felt like a trip to the gallows, the door, a big foreboding gate to an answer she didn't really want. Despite her fear she grit her teeth and knocked lightly. She heard a gravelly voice tell her to enter and when she did she saw the equally gravelly man it belonged to. He had a dark beard with little specks of grey running throughout and half burned cigarette hung from his mouth. He gave a curt nod of recognition. She sat down timidly as he flicked through some papers, his dark eyebrows creased as he skimmed the words.

After what seemed like hours, but was more likely seconds, he spoke. "Well Miss.Carter, your results came back and it would appear that you are in fact pregnant. It would be wise to have appointments with a midwife, getting more frequent the further along you get, just to keep a check on things. Congratulations." His tone in no way matched his words but Billie couldn't think to even get mad at him, after a gruelling week of waiting, her fears had been confirmed in a matter of minutes. She was going to be a mother. In her haze of worrying she hadn't noticed that the stout doctor had carried on talking until she heard him mention adoption which made her head snap faster than a rubber band.

"No."

He sighed and looked almost pityingly at her, "Look sweetheart, you seem like a nice girl and it's not exactly uncommon for nice girls to get into little situations like this but a kid is a big responsibility, and one you don't necessarily have to take on right now, there's plenty of good homes looking for babies to take in and…"

"No," she cut him off. "I appreciate what you're trying to say but I can't do that."

He sighed again, "Alright, well good luck Miss Carter." She thanked him and left with the feeling of her heart jammed right up her throat.

She walked out in a daze and somehow found herself perched on a creaky bench in the park. All the typical noises seemed dull and far away to her, like she was in a bubble, lost in thought. She thought about the first time she'd been with Darry, it wasn't incredible, nor was it anything like the horror stories she'd heard of from other girls, it was nice, intimate. In all honesty she remembered more of what happened afterwards, they'd laid in the dark in a tangle of limbs with only a pale strip of moonlight falling on Darry's face and for that short time there was nothing else to worry about, no jobs, no bills, no responsibilities.

Responsibilities, crap, how on earth was she going to be responsible for a child? She'd only just got properly on her feet herself and Darry already had Sodapop and Ponyboy to look out for, what if he couldn't look after her? What if he just didn't want to?

She went deep into this spiral until the sun started to set and she must have been sat for well over an hour before she noticed the slowly darkening sky and started to walk home.

She tried to go straight upstairs to her room when she got home but was stopped by Mrs.Woods asking her to step into her study. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence but when Billie turned and saw the look on her face a lump formed in her throat, this wasn't a typical chat, Mrs.Woods knew, she didn't know how but somehow she knew. The tension hung in the air as the two women sat opposite each other.

"How did it go at the doctors?"

"Good."

"What did he say?"

"Just a stomach bug, should be gone soon."

She could feel cold eyes boring into her. "What did he really say?"

She couldn't speak, she just sat there and stuttered shakily. Mrs Woods sighed and pushed her moon like glasses up her nose, "I should never have let you stay at that boy's place. I thought that under the circumstances you two could be trusted to behave but I should have known. Just sleeping over, my ass." Billie gasped at her language but she took no notice and carried on, "Do you have any idea the trouble you've just gotten yourselves into, that hood already has his brothers to look after what makes you think he's gonna be able to care for two more?"

She tried her best to ignore the tears stinging her eyes but eventually they won out and ran freely down her face, "I'm so sorry Mrs Woods, I never meant for anything like this to happen and it's not like we did it a lot, I never thought it'd happen so fast. I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry."

The older woman's expression softened at her confessions and she placed a comforting hand on her knee, "You girls never mean for it to happen, doesn't stop happening though."

After a thick, awkward silence had settled Billie eventually questioned her, "How did you know?"

"You're not the first girl here to have gotten themselves in this kind of trouble, and besides, pregnant women have a look about them, can't explain it but once you've been through it yourself it's easy to spot."

Mrs Woods had had a two children and she'd outlived them both, one she'd lost at birth but the other, Daniel, had lived to be 20. He'd died in the war and it was known mainly through gossip but she'd never spoken about them, never even mentioned them. Another silence over took the room but this one wasn't like the other, it was one of calm contemplation, one that let Billie know she was understood.

Again she broke it by asking, "Can I still stay over with Darry?"

Mrs Woods scoffed, "Well it's not like it's gonna make the situation worse is it. You should probably go there now in fact, let the poor boy know just how big of a mess he's made, and don't give me any of this 'I'll tell him tomorrow' rubbish because tomorrow never comes and then it's far too late, just get it out of the way." All Billie could do was nod as Mrs Woods showed her out.


	3. Bad timing

She'd tried to tell him that night, well she'd planned on telling him, she never really got a chance. After her talk with Mrs.Woods she'd steeled herself and walked over to confess. The freezing wind made her shiver but the closer she got to the Curtis's, the more she seemed to tremble, whether due to nerves or the cold she couldn't say. She plucked a cigarette and lighter from her purse, hoping a smoke would calm her down but she was shaking so much she couldn't get the damn thing to light so, begrudgingly, she shoved them back into her purse.

All the ways she could tell him swirled around in her mind and she tried to sort through them and find the right way to break the news. All of this planning was abandoned the moment she came to the lot however. The gang was gathered in a clump crouched down over something, she couldn't quite see what it was but the boys paced and peered, clearly panicked.

She slowed to meet them but as she laid her hand on Steve's shoulder to balance herself she saw what the problem was and her stomach gave a lurch. It was Johnny, he was laid in Soda's arms sobbing, blood pouring from a gash on his face, his face that was now nearly unrecognisable from all the bruising and bloodied marks that littered it. His breathing came out in ragged sobs as he clutched Soda's side. She spoke up, "What happened?"

"What do you think, fucking socs that's what!" Dally's fists clenched at his sides and Billie felt another twist in her gut. Of course it was socs. Who else would do something like this.

Johnny was normally a shy kid but right now he looked utterly broken. The whole gang looked pretty torn up, Pony and Soda kept sharing worried glances like they were having a whole hurried conversation through eye contact alone. Steve looked almost lost, like he wanted to do something, fight someone, but he knew it wouldn't help right now. Dally was pacing with pure fury in his eyes, like he was planning those socs' murders right there and then, he probably was. Two-bit was the strangest though, the comical grin he normally wore was gone in favour of a stormy, steely gaze.

Darry's voice cut through as he reached forward to pick up the beaten boy, he spoke in a soft yet demanding tone asking the boys to get things like aspirin and antiseptic. He was in business mode, there was a problem he needed to fix and feelings could wait till later.

As he was laid on the couch with the gang rushing around him Johnny let out another strained moan and Billie felt utterly useless, she had no idea what to do and she hated feeling useless. She was a woman for Christ's sake not a child, why was she frozen? She was going to be a mother soon, she couldn't just freeze at the first sign of trouble. Then it hit her, a mother, what Johnny needed right now was a mother, well the comfort that one was meant to give anyway. She wasted no time in pearching next to him and stroking his hair as Soda tried his best to lessen the damage. Johnny took her hand from his head and gripped it tight to his side. Johnny's life was hell, there were no two ways about it. His dad beat on him all the time and his mom would get drunk and yell about how useless he was and this made him a quiet boy but Billie had never once seen him break, not like this. It was an unwritten code that you didn't show emotions, not ones considered to be weak anyway, so for Johnny to be sobbing and gripping her hand like a child was big, he was terrified.

Once they'd got the worst of it sorted they moved him into Soda's old bed and Billie sat with him till he eventually succumbed to his exhaustion.

By the time she was sure she could leave him it was late, quarter past two to be exact. Pony and Soda, after much convincing, had gone to bed, Steve had at last gone home and Two-bit and Dally were out on the war-path for the socs that did this. That left only Darry. He was alone in the kitchen, staring down at a half empty glass clutched tight in his hand.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"How you holding up?"

Darry scoffed and grit his jaw, "I knew it could happen I just never thought it would, ya know?"

Billie furrowed her brows.

"I mean Johnny getting jumped, I knew it was a possibility but I never dreamed it'd be this bad, what the hell did he ever do to deserve this huh? He's probably the best out of the lot of us and those sick bastards thought they had the right to even touch him. I mean, hell, he already gets this shit from his parents, he don't need it from no one else. They didn't just jump him, Billie, they damn near mutilated him."

He sounded furious, he shook with anger and his grip on the glass had tightened to the point where his knuckles turned white, he was pissed beyond belief but he was also scared, not for himself but for his brothers and that included Johnny. She didn't respond, she just pulled up a chair and rubbed her hand on his arm. As she sat Darry's words resonated with her, damn near mutilated him, this wasn't just some typical jumping, Johnny looked practically dead when she first saw him. He'd keep those scars for a hell of a long time and she was sure he'd never be the same.

"Why did you come over anyway? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did but I thought you were sleeping at yours tonight."

This was the perfect opportunity to tell him, everyone else was asleep, they were alone, he was already sat down.

"I just had a feeling you know? Like I had to come over or something."

Darry nodded and looked down at his drink and Billie bit the inside of her lip, she'd chickened out. Now wasn't the right time anyway: he was stressed, it was late, they'd both had long days. She'd tell him another time.


End file.
